If bathroom worktop fitting in Childs Hill is on your list this year, the useful starting point is not the colour but the shape of the room. Older, smaller terraces than the rest of NW11, heavily converted into flats, so a large share of kitchens are 2.4m single runs fitted into former bedrooms or rear rooms with the boiler and the stack in the corner. Whole houses that survive intact usually take a modest rear extension rather than a full side return infill because the plots are narrow. The survey answers it, the drawing records it, and you sign off the drawing before a single sheet is cut.
An under-stairs cupboard eats one end of most of these kitchens, and the run stops at a door that has to keep opening. Ventilation, heating and lighting all compete for the same short stretch of wall, so by the time the surface is drawn the room has already been argued over once. The same stone as the kitchen, in a narrower cut.
The flat entrance door is a certified fire door on a closer, and taking it off for an hour means dealing with the seals and the closer before the day ends. Original boards over shallow joists give under load, so the unit is fixed back to the wall as well as standing on the floor before any stone goes on it. Half tiling leaves a line the splash return has to meet.
What turns up behind the front walls here is Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, converted flats and small post-war block. Each of those behaves differently once the old top comes off.
Figures cover the statistical area (MSOA) that contains Childs Hill| Figure | Childs Hill | Against London |
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| homes built before 1919 | 22% | pre-1919 share higher than 51% of the 723 areas we cover |
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| flats and maisonettes | 73% | flat share higher than 67% of the 723 areas we cover |
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| households owning their home | 40% | home-ownership share lower than 58% of the 723 areas we cover |
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Sources: VOA Council Tax Stock of Properties 2025 and ONS Census 2021 for MSOA E02000064. Open Government Licence v3.0.
